For the Attention ofLuchandPravdaReaders

Published:PravdaNo. 102, May 5, 1913.

      Signed: Reader ofPravdaandLuch.

      Published according to thePravdatext.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1977,

      Moscow,Volume 19,

      pages76-78.Translated:The Late George HannaTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2004).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

BothLuchandPravdahave on a number of
occasions published letters from workers demanding that the editors of
these newspapers give them a calm and clear exposition of the substance of
their differences. This is a legitimate and natural demand, and it is worth
while seeing how the two editorial boards have complied with it.

Underthe heading “Controversial

			       Issues”[1]Pravdapublished the explanatory articles that had been asked
for. What were they about? Those articles outlined and explainedParty
decisionson disputed questions. Through the author of those articlesPravdastated that to decide who is right in the dispute, where
the truth lies, one must examine the facts and documents of Party history,
try to put aside every thing personal, everything extraneous and understand
the social roots of the dispute. The dispute with the liquidators, saidPravda, “is not a matter of the evil will of certain individuals,
but of the historical situation of the working-class
			     movement”.[2]Those who seriously want to get at the bottom of the dispute must take the
trouble to understand that historical situation.

“Itis necessary to understand,” saysPravda, “theclassorigin of the discord and disintegration, to understand whatclassinterests emanating from a non-proletarian environment
foster confusion among the friends of the

			   proletariat.”[3]

Thisis a serious presentation of the question. It is a direct response
to the workers’ demand that they be helped tounderstand the serious dispute betweenPravdaandLuch. In this way the workers will get to know thefactsof Party life and will learn to distinguish what in this dispute is true
and a matter of principle, and what is shallow and fortuitous they will
seek theclassroots of the discord.

Itis possible that a worker, having learned the facts, having read
through the documents, etc., will in the end not agree withPravda—that is a matter of his own convictions and his
experience. But in any case, if he followsPravda’sadvice he will
learn a lot and will realise what the whole dispute is about.

SuchisPravda’sreply to the workers’ demand to make them
familiar with the existing differences. How didLuchact?

Atthe same time asPravdapublished its articles on
“controversial issues”,Luchprinted a lengthy article on the
same subject. Not a singlefactis cited in the article, the
author does not attach any social significance at all to the dispute and
does not call the reader’s attention to a single document.

Thisenormous article, spread over two issues of the paper, is packed
with gossip and allusions to personalities. The working-class reader is
informed of the “touchiness” and “charming witticisms” of one Marxist,
the “superman” pretensions of a second and the “cynicism” of a
third. All disputes are attributed to “the settling of personal
accounts”, to “discontent over matters of seniority” and to the
“struggle for power” in the Party. And an underhand rumour, worthy of the
official press, is slipped in to suggest that certain “master-hands at
revolution” are to blame for it all be cause they are afraid of losing
their influence if the broad masses of the workers enter into the dispute.

Whatthe author and the newspaper that published his article are aiming
at is to pack people’s heads with gossip, squabbles and personalities, and
thus avoid the necessity of explaining their point of view. It would not be
half as bad if it were merely gossip. But this is the gossip of an
embittered renegade, that is the trouble. Read what he writes at the
beginning of the second part of his article about “provoked and provoking
acts”, about “the dictatorship in the Party of supermen with a cynical
attitude to the masses”; read how he abuses the devoted people of 1905 bycalling them “master-hands at revolution” who have behaved in a way that
would be quite “impermissible in an environment with any degree of
culture”. All that,, of course, is lifted straight fromZemshchina,[4]or fromVekhi!

Thisappeared not inNovoye
Vremya[5]but in a paper that calls itself a workers’ newspaper, it
is offered as a reply to working men’s demands for a serious explanation of
the paper’s point of view! And even after thatLuchdares protest
against sharper forms of polemic and set itself up as a model of decorum
that wants to putPravdato shame.

Wemost insistently advise those workers who still believe thatLuch, unlikePravda, is a newspaper that stands for
unification and the cessation of internal squabbles, to read the
above-mentioned article and compare it with the wayPravdadiscusses the same questions.

[1]Seepp. 147–56 of this volume.—Ed.

[2]** [sic.]See p. 154 of this volume.—Ed.

[3]** [sic.—sharedfootnote] See p. 154 of this volume.—Ed.

[4]Zemshchina(Land Affairs)—a Black-Hundred daily
published in St. Petersburg from July 1909 to February 1917. It was
subsidised by the tsarist government and the Council of the United
Nobility.

[5]NovoyeVremya(New Times)—a daily newspaper
published in St. Petersburg from 1868 to October 1917. It was at first a
moderately liberal paper but towards the end of the 1870s it became an
organ of reactionary nobility and bureaucratic circles. The paper conducted
a struggle not only against the revolutionary movement, but also against
the liberal-bourgeois movement; from 1905 onwards it was one of the organs
of the Black Hundreds. Lenin referred toNovoye Vremyaas an
example of the venal press.